"LBP Time" at Dan Electro's
Hey Family,
I'm sure that we're not the only group in the world who fib slightly about the time that their event is going to start in order to make sure that people are on time. We call it "LBP Time" and it goes something like this:
1. The show (really) is supposed to start at 11:15
2. Sound Check is supposed to (really) happen at 9:45
3. The club tells us that sound check is at 8:30
4. We show up at 9:15
5. We tell you that the show starts at 10:30
6. You show up at 11:00
.....and every thing's cool... right?
Well, considering the conversation that I overheard Saturday night at Dan Electro's, I think we might have "LBP Time"ed you guys one time too many.
So, we're set to play at 10:00. We're the first band so we're really supposed to play at 10. It's about 9;35. I'm set up, Phyve has sound checked and Morris is ready to go. Marc is going to show up at 9:58 because he's a huge f-ing rock star and that's what huge f-ing rock stars do :)
There's a group of (about) 5 people lingering at the door. One member of the group is talking to the door guy. I walk by and hear this............
Girl: "Little Brother Project plays at 10, right"?
Door Guy: "Yeah, I think so"
Girl: "No, I'm serious, LBP plays at 10, ..........right"?
Door Guy: "Yes, they play at 10"
Girl: "10 o' clock, yes"?
Door Guy: "Yes"
Girl: "10 o'clock, not 11 o'clock, right"?
Goor Guy" Um..yeah"
Girl: "10 - 0 - 0, not 10:45, not 10:30"?
Door Guy: "10:00"
Girl "Not 10:15"?
Door Guy: (now getting nervous that he was wrong) "10:00"????? "I think"????
Girl: "Dude, seriously, look me in the eye and tell me that they're really going to start at 10"!
Door Guy: "Um...well....uh.....I......."
This is where I step in, smile and say, "yeah, we play at 10".
She nods, looks to her group and motions for them to come in, "Little Brother plays at 10, and it's only 7 bucks"!!!!
"Girl", please forgive me for not knowing your name, I hope you guys had a blast :)
Saturday was a lot of fun for us,
We'll see you all soon
Coy, LBP Bass
Friends at Dan Electro's
It's strange playing music for your friends. There's always plenty of faces at an LBP show that I either know only from LBP shows or don't know at all. But Friday at Dan Electros, I found myself thinking about the people that know us outside of "us".
For the most part, if you know Phyve, Marc, Morris and I personally, you would probably agree that who we are on stage is who we are off. But there is a tiny bit of "being on" or even "rock star" that takes over (his Mom doesn't call him Phyve). But, that's not to say that it's in any way fake. I don't know if it comes from being the center of attention because we're the loud thing that all of the chairs are facing or maybe it's that from the time the show starts until the time the show ends, we're exactly in our element, comfortable enough to be extra-real and completely honest.
I kept wondering what it looks like to people who know that I'm no rock star. To me, it feels like I'm letting the music and my heart lead my actions. But does it look like that to my wife's co-workers who know me as the guy who picks her up for work early on Tuesdays in order to get our son to soccer practice on time?
I guess what I was really wondering is which one is real? The quiet guy or the dude doing the bass solo while head banging with his tongue sticking out?
Maybe they both are. Maybe that's the point.
Anyway,
LBP played @ Dan Electro's Guitar bar Friday night. The crowd wasn't the biggest ever but was one of the best. Like I said, there were a good number of friends there and a few of them were more than willing to get silly with us. After the show was over and everyone had cleared out, the bartender said that she's going to have to put a stripper pole on stage (um... she was talking about you, Erika).
Thanks to everyone who came out, I hope you had as much fun as I did,
Hi, Coleen, I can't wait to see the pics,
Thanks to everyone for checking in,
See you soon,
Coy - LBP Bass
p.s. Forgive the bizarre blog, I try to let it just write itself and I guess it's in a weird mood :)
The Big Picture
There's a lot to say for staying in one's comfort zone. Our comfort zone is on stage. And after the last year or so, I'd like to think we've gotten pretty secure in the studio too. But tell us to come to a band photo shoot and watch the sweat start to form on all four of our fore-heads.
Most of LBP's pics have up until now been taken by friends and loved ones. Tyson decided that this time, we needed to act like grown ups and hire a pro.
The Pro (Dan) met us at the Meridian at 9:30 am on Saturday (which seemed pretty early to me). We had been given the run of the place for the day because Tyson rocks and is able to get people to agree to things even if they have no idea why.
The Pro had already set up a couple of ideas that he'd had and wanted to know what "concepts" we would like to go with. We told him that it was up to him. We would soon regret saying that.
It didn't start too bad and the first shoot was really fun. We wore suits and were put side by side under light bulbs that made us all look like we'd each just had a Wile E Coyote, super genius type idea. But here's the problem. Picture this: The four of us, side by side (from left to right - Marc, Phyve, Morris and then me). Um........heard any good short jokes lately? Marc was kind enough to take some of the spotlight off of me though by wearing a suit that was just small enough to look like he was going to audition for the Kinks or the Killers. Thanks Marc :)
The next set was what the Pro called "the Sears family portraits". I'm sure you can picture what that means. The funny part was as we sat there looking like mannequins hocking dockers, the road crew for that night's heavy metal headliners "All That Remains" starting loading in gear for later. They had a good laugh at our expense. But little did they know, the good stuff was yet to come.
The Third and Final Set Up:
The Pro had up to this point seemed like a pleasant, kind, all American, nice guy type. All of the sudden, his eyes turned black, horns grew from his fore-head and his breath smelled a little bit like brimstone. He and his evil henchmen (one of which was Tyson), asked the four of us to stand in a very tightly packed group and hold our instruments as they wrapped us in plastic. When I say tightly packed, I mean....... I now have first hand knowledge of Phyve, Marc and Morris that will haunt me forever. Gone are the days of innocence. Now, remember the best part..... a pretty good size group of tattooed, shaven headed rock dudes, standing 10 feet away, gawking in amazement of just how F'ing lucky they were to witness such stupidity. (I wonder if they have a blog).
All BS aside though, the pics look great and honestly, we had a good time.
We'll put some of these pics up on the sites as soon as we get some copies.
We have a couple of shows coming up:
March 22 - Revolution Cafe in Bryn
March 23 - Space Place in Houston
Thanks for the support,
Thanks Dan (the brimstone breath wasn't that bad)
Tyson, revenge is a dish best served cold,
Coy - LBP Bass
Umm... Blog?
Has anyone noticed that there's been no LBP blog in a REALLY long time? Well, if you're one of the people who keep saying things like, "hey Coy, why the F^*& haven't you written a LBP blog in a REALLY long time?"... then I'm guessing you've noticed.
I have a great excuse though:
I ran out of gas, I had mono, my dog ate it, all of my fingers were broken and it's taken me this long to learn how to type with my toes.
OK, OK.... I was high. You happy now? So sorry :)
Now that that's out of the way, the last few months have been great for us. We played some beautiful shows and of all things, a few house parties (we were completely prepared for the noise violation fines but somehow they didn't come). Thanks to everyone who came to LCC, Brazil and all of the shows that I can't think of right now.
But now the BIG, BIG, BIG NEWS:
LBP's new record "Glass Houses" is finished, mixed, mastered and ready to go. Everything is coming together well for a early summer release. We're very proud of this album and very excited to get really busy again.
Keep an ear to the wall and we'll let you know when the release party is coming,
Thanks for the support,
Coy - LBP Bass
Marc's B-Day/Bye Bye Erin/Texas vs Ohio/Coy's so Lonely
Thursday night was Marc's birthday (I won't give you a number, I'll leave that up to him). So, a Friday show at Dan Electro's seemed like a great chance to celebrate. Tyson and I planned to give him a cake on stage. The plan was to surprise him in the middle of a song, let the music fall apart and sing "Happy Birthday" (which I knew would drive him nuts, that's why I wanted to do it). But, the plan was flawed. I felt pretty stupid when Marc just kept playing. He smiled and played his way through Morris and I dropping out and blew out his candles with no Marc song/roast as I had envisioned (Duh, Coy...... Marc has control of the loudest F-ing thing in the room). Next time, I'll pull his power and really piss him off (Happy Birthday Bitch).
Marc's night had already been trumped anyway though. I started calling the friends that we've made through the band LBP Family a few years ago. Erin was a huge part of that family from day one. Our friend Erin is moving to San Diego (today, I think) and Friday was her last show for a long time. Erin has been both a huge support and a great friend to all of us. We'll miss you Erin, thank you for everything (but..... if you go to CA and find some other jam band to fall in love with, you're in big trouble). Erin has been the leader of the "Play Night Rider" movement since the first time we played it. In solidarity, Night Rider has been laid to rest (and shot in the head, buried in a shallow grave, kicked around a little and spat on). We'll miss you Erin, come back and see us soon.
Saturday was the well hyped Ohio at UT game (Marc was very excited, he's a HUGE sports fan). We headed to Sixth Street and The Troubadour Saloon with hopes of a Texas win. Austin was F-ing NUTS! You know how sixth street looks on a Friday/Saturday night? (kind of like New Orleans in February) That vibe had spilled over to (what seemed like) all of downtown. The level of Yee Haw was pretty high. (As we all know), Texas lost but the night was incredible anyway. We had absolutely one of our best shows of the year and we can't thank The Troubadour enough. A highlight for me was that my little sister (April) was at the show and she brought her Mother-in-Law. Aunt-in-Law and Aunt's Friend-in-Law. It was fun to watch their reactions to an LBP show (ladies of all ages love the Johnny).
On a personal note, my wife and son come home today from a two week trip and I can't tell you how happy I am (I'm going to the airport as soon as I'm done with this). Two weeks away from them is two weeks too long and I can't sit down and write today without mentioning my love for them. I know this is supposed to be a blog about our music but our music is about our lives and my life is Lindsay & Kobi. I'm going to the airport to pick up my life now.
Thank you for being part of the family,
You mean everything to us,
Coy - LBP Bass
p.s. go see Dariustx and Catfish Whiskey, wholey Sh!, we played with some great bands this weekend.
Another Organ Bites the Dust
We already knew that our Houston Chronicle article would be coming out on Thursday when Tyson asked if we would like to play a public access TV show on Saturday. Clearly the press is finally realizing LBP's importance. We were stoked BUT........ Morris was going to be out of state. We decided that Phyve, Marc and I would do it acoustic even though we knew that we would sound really subdued. They asked us to be at the studio at noon to set up and play at two. Phyve and I were the only people in the building when Marc walked in at 12:30 and I remembered that he had tried to "coordinate outfits" (Marc is our metro-sexual eye for the straight guy consultant). The reason I remembered was we were all wearing the white shirt and jeans that Marc had said that he was going to wear (bands with uniforms are cool). We soon found out that we were one of two bands that would perform during the show. The other band (deSangre) started to set up and people starting fluttering around checking cameras, making set decisions, setting up lights, etc. The hustle and bustle was really cool to me and I sat back and watched "show business" in action. It soon became clear though that there wasn't as much method as there was madness. it was a good thing that they asked us to show up two hours early because between noon and 1:58, we sat around not know what was going on. As they started counting down the seconds until the show was supposed to start, we didn't really know what, when, who, how or why so we just waited until someone pointed at us. We played a couple of songs and talked about how cool we are. I thought the day was over but I had no idea what was to come (enter ominous music here) Dum...Dum...Duuuuuum!
Here's the timeline from that point on-
3pm - 7pm
Lindsay (my wife), Kobi (my son) and I spend the day at Lindsay's long time friend's house (hi Jenni). I'm hanging out with hot chicks, eating pizza (life is good).
7pm - 8pm
Lindsay, Kobi and I drive home. Kobi spends the trip planning what levels of Battlefront II he and I will play.
8pm - 9pm
Kobi and I play the aformentioned levels of Battlefront II (plus some other levels. is there a 12 step program for four year olds with hardcore video game addictions?)
9pm-9:15pm
Coy - "my back kinda hurts"
9:15pm - 9:45pm
Coy - "my back F'ing hurts!"
9:45pm - 10:30pm
Coy - "my back F'ing hurts and my side F'ing hurts and my stomach F'ing REALLY hurts"
Lindsay - "let me take you to the emergency room"
Coy - "nah, I'll be fine"
10:30pm - 11:30pm
Coy - (screaming in pain) "wholey F! What the F is wrong with me. It hurts SO BAD!"
Lindsay - "let me take you to the emergency room"
Coy - "nah, I'll be fine"
11:30pm - 11:55pm
I try to blow it off and go to sleep. I take a nice healthy lortab cocktail and lie down.
Coy - (still writhing in pain) "I took something, I'm going to just lie down"
I then go into the bedroom and lie down for about 8 1/2 seconds
Coy "what the F is wrong with me this REALLY F'ING SUCKS!"
Lindsay - "let me take you to the emergency room"
Coy - "nah, I'll be fine"
11:56Pm
Coy - "we need to go to the F'ing emergency room"
11:59pm - 12:30am
Lindsay drives me to the hospital, every turn feels like a gunshot, every bump feels like a bazooka blast
Lindsay - "I think it's your gallbladder"
Coy - "nah, I'll be fine"
12:30am - 1:30am
At the ER, they take me right in. They give me a CT scan and take blood and pee pee samples.
ER Doctor - (within minutes after taking the CT) "It's your gallbladder, we've spoken to the surgeon and it's probably going to have to come out"
Coy - "nah, I'll be fine"
Lindsay just closes her eyes and shakes her head. She is empathetic for both my upcoming pain and my uncompromising denile.
1:30am - 11am
I'm admitted and taken to surgery the next morning. Before surgery, I talk them into doing an ultrasound (convinced that it will get me off the hook). As I get back to my room, the surgeon walks up and says "don't let him off the stretcher, I just looked at the ultrasound and it's worse than I expected".
The surgery went well and (as far as surgeries go) it hasn't been that bad. It was laparoscopic surgery (four small incisions instead of one huge one) and although it sucked, it certainly could have sucked worse. We were supposed to play at Warehouse live tonight but we canceled so that I can stay at home and rehabilitate myself with pain pills. But I'm going to tough it out this weekend so I'll see ALL OF YOU at Brazil on Funk-Jam friday :)
Thanx Lindsay and Kobi (you are my rock and I can't thank God enough for you),
Thanx LBP (I love you guys),
Thanx LBP Family (your support is amazing),
Thanx to my family (all three hundred and eighty seven of you),
Love,
Coy - LBP Bass (minus one more organ)
As We Travel the Road Together...... pt. three
As we travel the road together........Our little mini-tour came to a close on Monday. We were booked to play at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar here in the Heights. Before the show, we met with a photographer from the Houston Chronicle to take some shots for an upcoming article (Thursday, July 20th). We had a really cool rock star moment as we were outside of Dan Electro's, taking pics for the press (Trey) when a long line of cars full of LBP family rolled through yelling obscenities at us (thanx, we were feeling silly until that moment and you guys made us realize that we are silly).
The show turned out a little laid back and (until the end) there wasn't really much dancing or drunken craziness (Marc's in-laws were there so he couldn't lead the Patron charge). It was quiet in a cool way though. We were able to explore a little more than usual and not just try to be bigger and bigger and bigger. Improvising as much as we do, the crowd has just as much influence over our show as we do. That's why we say "LBP family". If you guys are laid back, we are laid back. If you guys get crazy, we get crazy. Monday's show was quiet in an interesting way. It was quiet in a - everyone had a heavy holiday weekend and were ready to sit back and relax kind of way. And so we were the soundtrack to that feeling.
The following Saturday (yesterday), we were scheduled to do the actual interview part of the upcoming Houston Chronice article (Thursday, July 20th - just in case you forgot). We decided to have the writer meet us at Dean's, it just seemed fitting. Her name is Sara Cress and we all really liked her. She quickly melted in to being one of us and that made for a great interview. We had her meet us at Dean's for sentimental reasons but ended up at Clark's because it was quieter. I'm very interested to read it. Usually, after talking to anyone from any kind of press, I feel like I've done a very bad job of representing myself (if you hear my ATX podcast, you will surely agree). But this time I felt like we all were actually ourselves (must be the power of a great interviewer).
Thanx to all of the clubs over the last week,
Thanx so much to all the LBP family (old and new),
Sara, I hope you enjoyed "Dr. Who",
It was great to play music with Beatty,
We'll see you all soon,
Coy - LBP Bass
